Study on the Development of High School Students’ English Language Ability from the Perspective of Informal Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the development of high school students’ English language ability from the perspective of informal learning. The results of the study show that, theoretically, informal learning can indeed improve high school students’ English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, English language awareness and sense of language, and cross-cultural communication ability. Simultaneously, the results of the questionnaire survey show that high school students’ informal learning on English language ability may result in normative, continuity, and bias problems. In view of these problems, the paper proposes optimization strategies from the perspectives of correctly orientating the role of high school English teachers, perfecting the organizations and shaping the culture of English informal learning in high schools. The paper contributes to guiding how high school students can improve their English language ability through informal learning and how to play the roles of schools and teachers in it.